Paisely woman is combining fine art and science to rebuild lives

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Paisley woman has turned her back on making a name for herself in fine arts to rebuild the lives of patients who have suffered cancer or trauma.Danielle Adair is a trainee reconstructive scientist who combines science and art to create lifelike prosthetics for people who have lost body parts through catastrophic illness or injury.For Danielle, it’s a job that combines her two great passions, art and helping others.Explaining she didn’t know the job existed when at school, the 28-year-old said: “Growing up I loved science and art.

I really wanted to do science, and I was in two minds about which I should choose.“My dad wanted me to do science too, but I chose art, and studied fine art for three years at Cardiff Metropolitan University.”But Danielle had always known she wanted to help people, to use her talents for others.“When I heard about Maxillofacial Prosthetics I knew it was for me,” she added. “It’s a job that lets me do something that improves someone’s life, for the rest of their life.”Maxillofacial Prosthetics is the practice of rehabilitating patients who have lost a facial feature or other areas of the body due to cancer, trauma or a congenital condition with a maxillofacial prosthesis.To get her training post, Danielle was one of the first students in Scotland to benefit from the Scientific Training Programme (STP) to study a Masters degree in reconstructive science.But it was no easy process.

On graduating from Cardiff, Danielle did a Masters in forensic art and patient identification at Dundee University. She said: “I learnt how forensic art could help identify the faces of the dead for newspapers, etc, and this degree was really interesting, however I knew I wanted to help the faces of the living.”Renfrew